Jetliners - At The Taj Mahal Bombay (1968) The Jetliners were one of the top showbands from Colombo/Sri Lanka (former Ceylon). They had some success in India and released one E.P. and two albums. "The Jetliners At The Taj Mahal Bombay" (Columbia 33EIX.5016 / 1968) was their second LP and it contained exclusively cover versions. I like their versions of "Funny How Love Can Be", "Summerwine" and "Walk On By". If you can get along with Easy Listening this might be for you. The lead guitarist Indra Rajah later moved to Switzerland and formed the bands Indra And The Park Avenue Connection and Indra & Move It.

Unofficial Reissue of original album and rarity from 60's beat/pop band from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The JET LINERS were a typical 60's cover band who played at the COCONUT GROVE at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo every week. Album comes in nice glossy sleeve, showing a majestic picture of the band in full Indian sunlight in front of the hotel.

While there are many other Dutch '60s beat bands that are better known to the international collecting community, the Haigs were one of the better mid-'60s groups to emerge from Holland. This Dutch 10" vinyl reissue assembles ten songs from both sides of all five of their 45s, amounting to a neat document of their entire recorded output, though more details might escape readers from outside the Netherlands, as the liner notes are entirely in Dutch. Many Dutch bands took the R&B-based rock of the Pretty Things and Yardbirds as a primary inspiration, but the Haigs were more on the Beatles and Hollies side of things, though taking to the style with more guts than most Merseybeat imitators. "Never Die" in particular, their most famous track, is a pretty good blast of straightforward early Beatlesque pop, down to the John Lennon-esque bleating harmonica. None of the other songs here are quite as good, but they have their moments, with a bit of the Zombies' minor-key brilliance seeping into "That's the Way She Is," and quite good Beatles/Hollies-style harmonies come to the fore on a number of songs. The later material has heavier traces of soul (especially on a cover of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night") and heavy rock, and isn't as enjoyable as the earlier singles, though those earlier 45s were no less derivative.

The Game were a rock & roll unit formed out of the remnants of an earlier Surrey-based band, The Secrets, in which lead guitarist Terry Spencer and bassist Allen Janaway had previously played. Tony Bird, who was 14 at the time, played rhythm guitar. Their big problem was the fact that they went through several changes in sound. Their rock & roll debut, "Gotta Keep Movin' Baby" (co-authored by Kenny Lynch, who was their manager for a time) on Pye Records in 1965 didn't sell, and the band changed labels and image, jumping to Decca and transforming themselves to a mod look and sound, on "Gonna Get Me Someone." That single appeared a year after their Pye debut, and the delay and the change in sound led to another stiff on the charts. The group then moved to Parlophone, which decided to withdraw their next single, "The Addicted Man" (co-authored by Alan Gowing), following a negative reaction on the program Juke Box Jury. At the company's behest, they cut a psychedelic number, "It's Shocking What They Call Me" -- the constant change of sound and image put the group into an impossible situation, what public they had developed being unable to keep up with these shifts. Their real sound featured flashy guitar with lots of power chords, strongly reminiscent of The Creation, best represented on their final single B-side, "Help Me Mummy's Gone," from 1967.

The Game broke apart in 1967-1968, guitarist Tony Bird later joining Kind Hearts & English, while Terry Spencer and Stan Decker formed Lavender Grove, and then a group called Grail. The original band appears to have retained a core of fandom, however, based on the fact that they reunited in the '90s with the original core members all present.

From interview of Mr.G.B.Delgado (Ph.D) - project leader of 'Beatburger" series - for "Audio Grail" Magazine

(excerpt, machine translation from Japanese):

- What is the project "Beatburger"?

G.B.Delgado: - We have thousands of 45's records from the sixties, that are long forgotten and the sound is not so good today. But these records and songs have a real enthusiasm and drive of those years. In addition, many pieces are considerable musical interest. "Beatburger" (presents by Beatman) brings it to our present - as if it were recorded today... These records should sound like live performances, full of emotion, spontaneity, and a sincere desire to let people hear this music, as it is...

- But how this can be achieved - after 50 years - with the help of magic?

G.B.Delgado: - (laughs) Yes, really with help of special magic & time machine! I could say much about it, to explain the technical details, but for the readers of your magazine "Audio Grail" is better and easier to show a special diagram that explains the essence of our revolutionary audio technology...

- Wow! It's incredible!

G.B.Delgado: - Probably yes! (laughs) As you can see, this is a very expensive project, but our efforts are to make this audio-magic... This is really a revival and the return of the forgotten groups of the sixties, when the music meant to a generation more than the music... And we hope that this will help to recreate the same feeling for modern audiences...

- Why is the name of a project - "Beatburger"?

G.B.Delgado: - 45's records in those days were made fast as a "fast food", - group came into the studio and recorded live a few takes, without any tricks of multitrack recording. Then just selected the best take and published a 45's record... Everything was simple and fast - like a hamburger - read: beatburger! But just this reason saving drive and emotions of those years - what is most valuable in these records and what we want to bring to the audience today...

- How many issues is supposed to do?

G.B.Delgado: - Today I can only imagine... But the release numbers "Beatburger No 001-999" satisfied readers of your magazine?

- Yes, of course! We look forward to the results of your wonderful magic! Thanks for the interview!

From interview of Mr.G.B.Delgado (Ph.D) - project leader of 'Beatburger" series - for "Audio Grail" Magazine

(excerpt, machine translation from Japanese):

- What is the project "Beatburger"?

G.B.Delgado: - We have thousands of 45's records from the sixties, that are long forgotten and the sound is not so good today. But these records and songs have a real enthusiasm and drive of those years. In addition, many pieces are considerable musical interest. "Beatburger" (presents by Beatman) brings it to our present - as if it were recorded today... These records should sound like live performances, full of emotion, spontaneity, and a sincere desire to let people hear this music, as it is...

- But how this can be achieved - after 50 years - with the help of magic?

G.B.Delgado: - (laughs) Yes, really with help of special magic & time machine! I could say much about it, to explain the technical details, but for the readers of your magazine "Audio Grail" is better and easier to show a special diagram that explains the essence of our revolutionary audio technology...

- Wow! It's incredible!

G.B.Delgado: - Probably yes! (laughs) As you can see, this is a very expensive project, but our efforts are to make this audio-magic... This is really a revival and the return of the forgotten groups of the sixties, when the music meant to a generation more than the music... And we hope that this will help to recreate the same feeling for modern audiences...

- Why is the name of a project - "Beatburger"?

G.B.Delgado: - 45's records in those days were made fast as a "fast food", - group came into the studio and recorded live a few takes, without any tricks of multitrack recording. Then just selected the best take and published a 45's record... Everything was simple and fast - like a hamburger - read: beatburger! But just this reason saving drive and emotions of those years - what is most valuable in these records and what we want to bring to the audience today...

- How many issues is supposed to do?

G.B.Delgado: - Today I can only imagine... But the release numbers "Beatburger No 001-999" satisfied readers of your magazine?

- Yes, of course! We look forward to the results of your wonderful magic! Thanks for the interview!

This little compilation EP called Tцne gejagt und eingefangen ( Hunted and Captured Sounds) was released to commemorate the 9. International Amateur Recording Contest held in Amsterdam in the fall of 1960 and of course to advertise for Telefunken reel to reel tape recorders. Apparently the International Federation Of Soundhunters and the contest still exists. A cool little subculture even more obscure than record collecting.

This record featurs a mixture of sound excerpts made by various winners of the contest. Thankfully the only full track here is also the only one that is interesting to pop music fans. Beatґn heart was also featured on volume 4 of Prae-Kraut Pandemonium, the most essential LP compilation series of obscure German Beat music.

I didnґt know what was on the record and just bought it because it looked interesting. What a surprise when I found this little gem! Beatґn heart is clearly influenced by Joe Meek. Only this recording was all done by Ronald Patrick Guttridge himself, a British travelling salesman as the insert states, with the use of a reel to reel tape recorder. As you can guess, itґs him playing guitar and drums mixed with the sound of a beating heart. The insert even speculates on the real hit potential. Obviously it didnґt make it.

But it is a charming instrumental RockґnґRoll tune in all itґs primitive glory…

Anyone who doesn't have a clear image of the Classics IV can be forgiven -- they went through so many shifts in personnel and sound (not to mention a name change after they'd started recording), they were little more than a name attached to some excellent (and very good-selling) records of the second half of the 1960s, without a personality or identity to grab onto easily.

Although they're considered a late-'60s phenomenon, owing to the chronology of their hits, the group can trace its roots back to R&B harmony (i.e., doo wop) music of the late '50s. Detroit-born, Florida-raised Dennis Yost, who joined on drums and moved into the singer's spot, came from a Jacksonville-area band called the Echoes; he was just old enough to remember '50s R&B when it was current and, among many other groups, loved the Five Satins; and in addition to playing the skins, he sometimes liked to sing when the calls came for a '50s number like "In the Still of the Night." After his own group broke up in the mid-'60s, Yost joined a band called Leroy & the Moments, which included Wally Eaton (bass, vocals), James Cobb (guitar), and Joe Wilson (keyboards). His arrival, along with the changing times, also signaled a change in the group's name -- as there was no "Leroy" anyway, that could go, and the Moments was already taken, so, taking their lead from Yost's Classic-model drum kit, they became the Classics.

Their sound was extremely diverse by all accounts -- they could cover most of the Top 40 note-perfect, which was ideal for audiences in Jacksonville but didn't necessarily give them much to work with as a recording act. Part of their act included a tribute to the Four Seasons, who were still burning up the charts in those days -- and, though they had a history that went back much further, were a lot like the Classics in that they could sing anything and were also a virtually self-contained unit instrumentally -- and when the group was signed to Capitol Records in 1966, they made their debut that fall with a Joe South song called "Pollyanna"; the single was virtually a faux-Four Seasons record in style and sound, and it was just different and fresh enough that it might have done well, except that the management of the actual Four Seasons reportedly took offense, and did their best to keep "Pollyanna"'s presence to a minimum on the New York airwaves; and to top it off, the group was threatened with legal action by a Brooklyn-based vocal outfit called the Classics, who'd already charted a single.

Thus, Florida's Classics became the Classics IV, and for all of that trouble, their debut record fizzled at number 103 on the charts. "Pollyanna" might have made a good debut in 1966, but releasing a remake of the Diamonds' 1950s hit "Little Darlin'" -- produced by Joe South -- in January of 1967 was plain bad timing for a good record that had no place to go (ironically, two years or so later, with the nostalgia craze starting to kick in, that might have been another story). The record was actually more important for its B-side, which had a faux-Righteous Brothers song called "Nothing to Lose," co-authored by guitarist James Cobb and Buddy Buie, who would soon take on a much bigger role; it was also sung by Cobb and Yost, subbing for Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. By that time, the group had also relocated to Atlanta, and were unbowed in their quest for success, despite the end of the first recording deal.

Their Capitol contract was behind them by the spring of 1967, and the following summer the group moved on to Imperial Records. Once a home to New Orleans-based R&B stars like Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew, Imperial had been absorbed into Liberty Records and was now a much more pop/rock-oriented operation, the imprint even being used for the early U.S. releases of records by the Hollies. It was at this point that things started going the group's way, when Buie and Cobb heard an instrumental entitled "Spooky," and came up with words for it, and a new arrangement by Cobb. The record, released in September of 1967, broke out in Louisville, KY, and began getting picked up by stations around the country, building slowly to a number three national hit that winter of 1967-1968. Suddenly there was a serious future in the offing for the Classics IV -- but not for Cobb as a member, nor for Yost as a drummer. The sudden infusion of royalty money on the shared copyright of "Spooky" eliminated the need for Cobb to remain as the group's guitarist; and suddenly Yost's position behind the kit on what was now a very heavy national touring schedule became untenable. Cobb kept writing and also sometimes doing the group's arrangements with Buie (who became the producer of the Classics IV), alternating with official arranger Emory Gordy; but he gave up playing on-stage with the band, preferring the less draining life of a session guitarist, and was replaced in the lineup by Auburn Burrell; and Yost stepped up to the microphone full-time while Kim Venable took over on the drums. They were no longer, strictly speaking, the "Classics IV" but that hardly mattered, as the band's lineup situation quickly got a lot more complicated.

As they were now a national-level act with an audience across a continent, it was decided by Buie and Imperial that there was no reason to limit themselves to the talents -- fine as they might've been -- of the actual members when it came to the sounds on their records. In place of the members, apart from group alumnus Cobb, the Classics IV's records soon began featuring some of Atlanta's top session musicians, among them drummer Robert Nix, while the touring membership included Dean Daughtry and Bill Gilmore on keyboards and bass, respectively, all late of Roy Orbison's band the Candymen. All of these personnel shifts, coupled with a bumper crop of Cobb/Buie songs, made for a strong debut album, entitled Spooky. The only problem, in retrospect, was that the sounds were too diverse -- it was hard to pin down an identity for the Classics IV, listening to the album, and given the diversity of personnel it's not surprising. Among top American groups, the Beach Boys also relied on session musicians after 1964, but they always made sure Carl Wilson's guitar was there, and their voices were easily recognizable. Apart from Yost's singing, there wasn't a lot of unity in the Classics IV's sound.

Their next couple of singles, "Soul Train" and "Mamas and Papas," didn't do more than a fraction of the business done by "Spooky," though the group was permitted to record a second LP, which failed to sell in any serious numbers, at least initially. One song off of the album, entitled "Stormy," was given a single release and suddenly the group was back in the Top Five in the fall of 1968, and for the first time also made the easy listening charts as well. They made a return visit, this time all the way to the number two spot, in the winter of 1969 with "Traces," another Cobb/Buie collaboration, this time with help from arranger Emory Gordy. The group's longevity seemed assured, but an interesting shift had taken place in their output across the preceding two years -- they'd gone from being a solid rock & roll cover band to delivering a much softer, more laid-back pop/rock sound with a Southern flavor but not a lot of wattage, and closer in spirit to, say, the work of Roy Orbison circa 1967-1968 than to what was considered rock music in 1969-1970. And their singles, although they still made the pop (i.e., rock) charts, were starting to place higher numbers on the easy listening (i.e., pop) charts, on records such as "Everyday With You Girl," which reached number 19 as a rock single and number 12 on the easy listening charts in 1969.

Amid this flurry of activity, the group's name was changed in the new decade, so that they were known officially as Dennis Yost & the Classics IV. Their chart action declined throughout 1971, however, amid the changing tastes of the public, and the reorganization of their record label -- which had merged with United Artists -- made the environment at Liberty inhospitable. Dennis Yost and the Classics IV shifted to MGM Records in 1972 and lasted through one album and a last pop hit, with "What Am I Crying For," along with a string of attempts through 1975. By that time, Cobb, Daughtry, and Buie had split off to form the Atlanta Rhythm Section. At that point Dennis Yost went solo, or tried to -- meanwhile, their ex-studio band emerged as the Atlanta Rhythm Section and, amid all of their other successes, enjoyed a new hit with "Spooky" in 1979, while Santana returned "Stormy" to the charts. Meanwhile, Yost became a fixture on the oldies circuit alongside his one-time Imperial labelmate Gary Lewis and other denizens of the mid-'60s singles charts, and also wrote songs and became a producer. He also secured the exclusive rights to the group name, and continued to perform into the early 21st century.

Raven's Atmospherics 1966-1975: A Complete Career Collection has as much music as a fan of the Atlanta-based blue-eyed soul/AM pop collective could want. At 29 tracks, it has just two more than Taragon's Best of Dennis Yost & the Classics IV, but anybody looking for anything other than "Traces," "Stormy," and "Spooky" would be satisfied with either. Fans looking for a more succinct compilation should check out EMI's reissue of the streamlined Very Best of Classics IV.

Born in Austria, and raised in Toronto, Jack returned to Austria in 1964 after completing high school in Toronto. He attended the Academy of Arts in Vienna and for the next ten years became popular in the European music scene as an acid folk singer-songwriter. In 1966 he formed the folk group, Jack's Angels, who recorded four albums for the Austrian Record label, Amadeo Records. They were hugely successful, but the group disbanded after a few years.

Jack continued recording and made three more solo albums for Amadeo Records

Jack Grunsky's singing and performing began in high school in Toronto, where he played drums in the dance band or strummed guitar in his folk singing trio. After graduating, he moved to his native Austria, where his music began to flourish. In 1966, he formed the popular folk group, 'Jack's Angels', who signed a 4-album record deal with Amadeo Records in Vienna. The group was short-lived, but Jack continued to record three more solo albums for the label and had a number of songs climb the European pop charts.

Born in Austria, he came to Canada as an infant. His singing and performing began in high school in Toronto, but after graduating he returned to Europe where his music career began. In 1966 he formed the successful but short-lived folk singing group, Jack's Angels who were signed to Amadeo Records of Vienna, Austria. After the group disbanded, Grunsky recorded three solo albums for the label, one of which was produced by Alexis Korner. The album, Toronto, was recorded in London and featured tracks with Mick Taylor on slide guitar.

He was subsequently brought on board the progressive German label, Kuckuck Records of Munich, where he produced three more albums of original material.[3] Grunsky was a featured guest on many radio and TV specials and even hosted his own half-hour weekly radio show called, Folk With Jack an Austrian radio ORF.

In 1974 he moved with wife and young daughter back to Canada where he connected with record producer Chad Irschick and released an independent album titled, The Patience Of A Sailor.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Hook-laden tunes transformed Salisbury, Wiltshire, England-based quartet Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich into one the United Kingdom's top pop bands of the mid-'60s. Performing songs by their managers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, the group scored with such Top Ten U.K. hits as "Hold Tight," "Hideaway," "Bend It," "Save Me," "Okay," "Zabadak," "Last Night in Soho," and the chart-topper, "Legend of Xanadu." Formed as Dave Dee & the Bostons, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich were led by vocalist Dee (born: David Harman), an ex-policeman who had been at the scene of the automobile accident that took the life of American rocker Eddie Cochran and injured Gene Vincent in April 1960. Dee had taken Cochran's guitar from the accident and held it until it could be returned to his family. Although they were among the many British bands who honed their skills while performing in Hamburg, Germany, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich were one of the first to tour the United Kingdom with established acts. Shortly after moving to London in 1965, the group hooked up with Howard and Blaikley. With the group disbanding in 1969, Dee recorded a minor hit as a soloist before turning his attention to producing. He briefly reunited with the band in 1974 and again in the early '80s. He recorded a single, "Staying with It" b/w "Sure Thing" in 1983.